The Lady in My House

Witness: Brad
Location: Greensboro, North Carolina
Date of Encounter: 1997

Up to this point I didn't really believe in ghosts. I had not been acquainted with the paranormal. On this day it was late afternoon and I was home alone studying for a high school exam. I had nothing turned on in the house but a lamp behind the recliner I was in with all my books and stuff. My studying went on for a while longer and it was dark when all of a sudden I heard a series of loud bangs above my head. Three or four in a row — boom, boom, boom — the space above my head was a loft that was my bedroom. I assumed something fell and started upstairs when similar sounds happened again, this time on the opposite end of my bedroom which stretched the length of the house. Seconds later the sound happened again but on the end it did the first time. It sounded like someone was throwing my dresser across the room. Gathering all the nerve I could I ran up the steps to see what was going on, but nothing at all had happened. Nothing had fallen. It didn't sound like it was on the roof, but actually in my room upstairs. I went back downstairs and my neighbors weren't even home.

We also had a cat while living there that we had prior to moving to that house. The poor cat was never the same, its diet changed, it gained massive weight and turned into a flake that no one could touch. The cat just hid all the time — a totally different cat than before. On another occasion I was downstairs playing my guitar through a Marshall amp. If you know anything about amps, you know Marshall is a top brand name and really good quality. But on this day while just jammin along with the radio the amp burst into flames! Craziest thing! I've owned many amps and never had this happen. I had to unplug it and throw it out in the driveway — the amp was completely ruined.

Also somehow the cat would end up in the spare bedroom that stayed closed off and we never went into. I would end up hearing it clawing to get out and wander how did you do that?

A while after all of this on a sunny mid-morning I started down stairs and when I got to the bottom of the steps to open the door leading to the rest of the house a very strong mildewy smell hit me so strongly in fact I stopped before opening the door and looked around on the stairs and walls to see where the moldy smell was coming from. I had never smelled this before and shaking my head I opened the door and I glanced across the living room — I saw a full-bodied apparition sitting on the couch. It was a woman in old style clothes sitting with her hands in her lap. She wore a long dark dress. From my vantage point it was a side profile. She never moved and was about 20 feet away. She wasn't completely transparent, but looked almost black and white. I stared at her for a few seconds not moving an inch. It wasn't just a flash like there one second and gone the next, but instead happened over a few seconds maybe 5 or 10, then I blinked and she was gone.

The only other reports were from people who spent the night and experienced uneasiness and trouble sleeping. I don't know a lot about spirits but I do know living at this place made me feel that they are around us. If you know more and think you know what kind of haunting this was or what kind of ghost it may have been I would be interested in hearing your opinion.